My relative recently chose to take an online course at a university.
That's fine. Great, even. The problem was at the first part of the
course they introduced the idea of minimum requirements. Well, we
checked the university minimum requirements page. The page made
absolutely zero mention of any OSes other than Mac OS X or Windows 8+
(although it doesn't mention 11 at all. lol). My relative has a
Chromebook and the uni uses Blkboard (BB).

What.
The.
Fuck?

Last I checked, BB is a freaking website. A website has system
requirements beyond using Javascript? Are you fucking kidding me? The
uni site was quite unhelpful (shocker) and the BB compatibility
checker gave a giant nothing in the place where they supposedly
animate checkmarks like it's some car diagnostic instead of a freaking
normie web browser. It's Chrome, so I don't THINK there should be any
problems, but what minimal research I did says "Yep, there are some
compatibility issues."

You have got to be kidding me. This just highlights the issue with
using bloated BS to do basic tasks. I think they're called learning
management systems (could be wrong). But there is a limit to how
complex a dadgum online course needs to be. The only thing that needs
remotely-powerful hardware is video conferencing. The only thing that
needs remote security or database structure is a grade tracking
system. Even then you could still probably get away with posting some
salted student ID, barring some privacy law issues.

Learning should not be tied to what OS you use or how much RAM you
have. That's why I absolutely hate BB and similar systems. I told my
relative, who is lost on most tech things, that she would have to
contact the help department and worst case is she might have to buy a
new PC... just to take one class. While it's been quite some time, I
do believe I had limited access to BB using Lynx of all things when I
was in school. The old(er) Web was cool like that. I'm young enough or
old enough (depending on your POV) to have used TurnItIn in HS. It was
good (not great) for anti-plagiarism and relatively simple. That's
what turning in papers online should be at the worst.

It's just lamentable that my relative has to contemplate dropping a
course because her perfectly-capable PC doesn't have the "right" OS on
it.